


You, Singing in the Wire

by InfiniteCalm



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Christmas fic, Epistolary, Fluff, Is cool, M/M, Smoking, countryside, kind of, or my approximation of such, winter in the uk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21677305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteCalm/pseuds/InfiniteCalm
Summary: Thomas reflects on the countryside, and other things.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 15
Kudos: 92





	You, Singing in the Wire

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I have been snowed under w uni work lately and my laptop broke and then was fixed so I've not been writing much, BUT: the Downton Abbey movie MADE ME EMOTIONAL which I resent it for. I have lost all reason. What were they trying to say. I'm trying to get into the swing of things so please accept this small offering!!! Title is from Wichita Lineman written by Jimmy Webb sung by Glen Campbell (which is not a bad framework to view the whole fic from if that's how u roll. I would have put it as an epigraph on the fic but it's less that 1,500 words so I didn't.)
> 
> warnings: Thomas smokes and the period-typical homophobia is implied though never mentioned

Thomas is standing in the courtyard, his own breath loud in his ears. He can nearly hear his joints creak. He enjoys this kind of quiet- in his childhood, his mother used to get worried when he turned inwards, thinking he was up to some disaster. In fairness to her, usually he was. Now he notices how the nannies’ ears prick up when the children are especially silent and thinks he understands how she must have felt. It’s not good for children to be so hushed. It generally precedes screaming or blood or a broken family heirloom. They have those to spare, here. Not so when he was young.

But now he’s a grown man, a butler, no less, and it’s expected that he stands quietly; it’s a requirement of the position. The real battle is in controlling his thoughts when they start to race, which they do so easily when there’s nothing occupying the hands- that’s taken practise, and some days he’s still no good at it. He can wake up then and it’s like he never felt better, like he’s right back there. Then it’s about how he can conceivably cut corners, what he can delay, what he can delegate without somebody finding out and insinuating things about fitness for his station.

Not important. Not important, right now.

He takes drag of his cigarette, tastes the tobacco at the back of his throat, exhales, carries on exhaling until not only the smoke but the breath is gone from his lungs. Inhales, cold air in, cutting, fresh. The breath is so cloudy that it’s almost indistinguishable from the smoke. The rest of the staff will be tired in the morning, all of them; the rooms are hardly better than outside, and it’s difficult to sleep. The ice never quite melted today, and it’s below freezing again tonight. He’ll have to see that the pipes are kept warm. He’ll have to make sure that the fires are lighting earlier than usual tomorrow. He has to talk to Lady Grantham about the family’s plans for-

The moon is hanging so still and bright tonight that he could probably walk down through the silent fields, to the village, and see all the houses there, their colourful doors and drawn curtains turned blue. The little church maybe seeming abandoned. This time of year, the palette of the countryside around them is brown and a lank green, the sky too pale to influence it. Birds fly in stark contrast to the weak sun. He’d _hated_ the winter during the war.

Now, as he takes another drag of his cigarette, Thomas sees the courtyard in the weak lamplight, ready to frost, the moon making silhouettes out of the distant trees, and he feels suspended. They’re growing closer to 1928. There’s a such a feeling inside his chest. Once, on a night very similar to this one (in 1912, which may have been a separate world, it may as well have happened to a different man entirely) and a fox had darted out in front of him, and Thomas had had to stop. The fox had darted away without further ado, but Thomas had felt something vulnerable and vast behind his ribs that had been difficult to define, and impossible to fully forget. He’s feeling it now; he felt it this Summer, dancing.

He lets the cigarette fall to the ground and stubs it out with his toe, watching the vivid embers flicker on the ground. And then he retrieves the envelope from his breast pocket. He has very carefully not been thinking of it all day. And now, in his hands, here it is, real. The penmanship is already so familiar to him that he sometimes slips, when he is tired, and thinks he has known it all his life.

_London, 3/12/27_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Upon reflection I am beginning to regret my advice to you; circumspection is all well and good, but one can take things too far. You write in such circles it was difficult to discern the meaning of your last letter. Of course, I was sorry to hear about the rain up north. It’s been raining here too, but I find it is always bearable once I know that the sun will return. Perhaps that is something you could bear in mind- it is difficult now, but it is worth it._

_I have been working hard all week and tomorrow I have a day free, which is very welcome indeed, so I going to see an exhibition in town, from where I will post this letter. A change in routine is as good as a rest, as they say._

_I cannot stop thinking about the tour we made this Summer. I never saw such lovely sights. It also made me aware of how little I see of my parents- I’ve mentioned this to those higher-up than myself, who have informed me that although it will not be for some time, I may have some leave in the new year, which I can take to visit York and spend time with my mother. Of course, I will have free time while I am visiting them. It would be good to see you again, if you can get some time off work._

_When I received your last letter, I could not stop myself from smiling. I read it piecemeal over the day, and when night came, I read it all at once again. I said earlier that you write in circles- it was a joy to decipher quite what you meant. I should not keep all these letters (nothing annoys me more than a cluttered room) but there they sit, in my bed stand, and they will not be removed. It has been a long time since I let any collection of letters build up so._

_You wrote very amusingly of the misunderstanding over the flowers and the wedding. So strange that so much happens to you all up there; things that would be the subject of talk for a year down here (and, frankly, which would result in immediate dismissal) seem to happen as a matter of course to you, week on week. I do laugh at the image I have of you all covered in the soil, even if that is uncharitable. But then, every image of you I have does rather make me smile. I like to think of you in the fresh air, away from the smog. I wish you would tell me more about how it all feels, being somewhere without constant noise and lights and all the rest. You would tell me not to be so unhappy with my lot and that there are plenty of advantages to living in the city, and I daresay you’re right, but I grew up nearer to the countryside. You would not credit how seeing the seasons change can settle you, if you’ve never lived somewhere that’s grey all year._

_I cannot help but wish to be younger. Then I might say, hang it all, this is not what I would like to do, and hand in my notice and catch the next train up to see the flowerbeds and the wedding shoes and ruined shirts for myself. To see the Winter in the countryside. When one is settled, though. in a good position, it is much harder to do as one wishes. If one is no longer as young as one was, it is even harder._

_It’s very hard, to draw the line between too circuitous and just circuitous enough- how do you manage? You possess I skill I confess I do not. You shall have to teach me. Upon re-reading, however, I do believe my message is clear._

_Yours cordially,_

_Mr. Richard Ellis_

Thomas traces his thumb over the signature, dug into the paper so he can feel how Richard pressed the pen he used, and closes his eyes. He reads back over the page. His knee creaks. His exhale is loud. He finds a small smile on his face, and then a tugging in his chest. Carefully he folds the letter up, reinserts it into his pocket, and faces out again to watch the countryside, the moon, the wide, dark sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment or kudos if you liked this!! find me on tumblr [@meryton-etc](https://meryton-etc.tumblr.com/)


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